McEneny makes it official, bows out of Assembly after 20 years

McEneny declines the party's nomination at the Polish Community Center.

Longtime Albany Assemblyman John “Jack” McEneny confirmed last night what’s been widely suspected since last week — that he won’t seek re-election to an 11th term.

I won’t rehash the whole affair, but make sure you read Jimmy Vielkind’s story about the announcement here, and check out this gem of an anecdote in which McEneny recalls his first trip to the Albany County Democratic Committee in 1965.

That trip included a brief — though prophetic — encounter between McEneny, then a recent hire in the Corning administration, and iconic county Democratic Party boss Dan O’Connell.

It was 1965, and the new city employee, and ushered over to see Dan O’Connell, the long-tenured party boss, rumpled in a corner of the old Polish Hall on Sheridan Avenue. “It was really the machine then,” McEneny said.

O’Connell stood in a quasi-receiving line where apparatchiks and officials shuffled along to see their king, his worn, brown fedora the county’s political crown. McEneny was introduced as a new employee in the welfare office.

O’Connell looked up at young Johnny McEneny. “Good-lookin’ guy — we ought to run ’em for office,” he said.

He announced that he would not SEEK the nomination, or better put, would not seek to run on the Democratic line in the general election. Although the Party doesn’t seem to understand this, being in office does not mean you automatically should be the Party’s anointed candidate next time around.

At least let’s keep up the pretense that the registered voters of the party actually have some minuscule say in deciding who their candidates will be.